She sits a bit back shadowed

hands tightly together no

smile giving her self away

Twilight too bright for headlights

Does it seem this way to you too?  In a new or mostly unpredictable situation, the first response is a kind of fearful emotion?  Maybe just a bit of anxiety or apprehension, not full blown terror. I have often wondered about this especially because I seem to be more blessed with this reaction than Babs is.

Actually it makes sense to me.  Emotional responses are the first responses.  And, if one is confronted with a new situation, then the emotional mind, often called the gut mind, attempts rapidly to assess whether this is going to hurt a lot , a little, or not at all.  That’s a working description of anxiety as a first response to things new.

It could also be argued – probably by Babs – that being anxious is just my basic nature.  I can’t really disagree too strongly.  I grew up in a household where being anxious wasn’t just a matter of happenstance; it was the preferred mentality.  My mother and I have long agreed that when confronting a situation, one should envisage the worst possible scenario and figure with some confidence that it won’t be that bad in reality.  This is a more dire approach to facing things than pessimism.  Pessimism is just the possibility that the glass is only half full.  I think preparing for the worst and hoping it won’t be that bad trumps mere pessimism.

Modern psychology has recognized that human beings respond first from their emotional, gut mind, and then a bit later the rational mind kicks in to process the situation at hand as well.  It’s a well documented fact that perceptions from the five senses get cycled to the amygdala, the seat of the gut mind, before they get all the way upstairs to the newer brain parts.  So before the rational mind can begin to figure out from all the clues that a piece of left-over rope lying next to the twilight path is just a piece of left-over rope, the gut mind has already jumped ahead to the “be afraid; be very afraid” response.  So despite Babs’ protestations, my mother and I aren’t completely nuts.  I’d just like the record clear on that point.

Interestingly, my guru, Gururaj Ananda Yogi, didn’t split out the gut and rational minds so separately as modern psychology does.  This I have found unusual because Gururaj was a pretty with it guy when it came to science.  He was perfectly happy to use the Big Bang theory in talking about the origins of the universe.  In some comments, one can almost read in a conceptualization of the Absolute Divinity that would not be far out of line with multiverse “brane” cosmologists.  But, curiously he lumped the gut mind in with the rational mind, one big lump, the “conscious mind” in his terminology.  So the way to handle the quick emotional reaction of the gut mind was to “do your meditation and spiritual practices” because that simple maxim applied to all things involving the conscious and the subconscious minds.

Still I know many meditators who struggle with their emotional responses.  I certainly have and do.  Somehow it is a contest.  Just as one should always be nonattached from the ego’s attempt to grab the steering wheel of one’s life, my friends sometimes seem to want to blot out strong emotional responses.  “I know I shouldn’t feel that way.  Gururaj used to say that a mountain could fall behind him and he wouldn’t notice it.  So why am I so easily upset after all these years of meditating?!!!”

Now it makes sense!  The gut mind reacts more quickly than all those years of meditation and nonattachment.  It reacts on some very oversimplified reaction patters.  “Have we experienced the same sensory input recently?  Then this must be the same thing as last time.”  So if you are in the habit of eating a lot of banana cream pie, and the gut mind gets sensory input regarding a triangular shape of yellow with white on top, it is likely to be sending out a strong “Grab it” message before the rational, conscious mind has much chance to react by remembering that the piece of pie in the refrigerator is the piece of lemon pie that Babs saved for her dessert and that touching it will only bring a great deal of pain into one’s greedy life. 

See, it is at this point that the nonattachment gained in meditation really does pay off.  One needs to be nonattached to the immediate gut reaction in order to give the conscious mind time to fine tune the mind’s perception of what the sensory input is really all about.  In short, react, assimilate, then choose.

At the very least one can use all one’s faculties to make up a good story why you ate the piece of lemon pie before Babs gets back to the refrigerator.

Blue their old gray hound whimpers

hearing passersby wanting

action fresh air a place to piss

I have no key to their door

I’m writing this morning from the home of my son-in-law, a well know UK artist.  Last weekend we saw a five-second slice of a Microsoft commercial that used one of his civic sculptures as an iconic background in a TV commercial.  I was thinking this morning about what an average life I have had.  I know one shouldn’t admit to an average life.  There are no merit badges for average.  Still I have had a wonderfully average life so far.

My grandfather was a farmer.  As a kid I remember it was always interesting to look in the toolbox mounted to the fender of his tractor.  I usually could find an arrow head or two; sometimes just a fragment and sometimes a nearly perfect point.  One my grandfather’s fields had been the site of an Indian encampment, a site close to an outcropping of flint.  Of course, when I saw the field, there were no signs of the camp.  There were no post holes for woodland hogans, no fire pits, no rotted remains of a village.  My grandfather only had the flint points that he found every spring when plowing.  I have often wondered if the field had ever been a real village or just a site where Indians had chipped the flint to make tools and weapons.

The flint points are the only bits left of the lives on that Indian tribe – at least for me.  In a way then, the Indians lived invisible lives.  That, I think, is what average is all about, invisibility.  On the face of it being invisible would seem like a rather miserable fate.  Not leaving a mark in history to show for having been alive, now that’s pretty awful, isn’t it?

I’m not so sure.  Here’s the thing.  Just being alive seems like quite a gift. 

I remember as a child seeing people in all stages of life – a bit like watching a film.  As an adult classroom teacher it was interesting to watch the students and meet the parents – each with their own individual life dramas.  In short, I am always fascinated watching all those lives playing through.

And, here’s the other thing.  I also get to live through my own individual existence and interact with life.  I have my own drama, quite absorbing for me of course, and it fits in perfectly to create harmony or strife or both in the individual lives of those around me.  I know from experience what it feels and tastes and moves like to be meeting a girl for the first time.  So when I see my grandsons discovering another dimension to girls I can enjoy their discovery.  I know what it means to have a business strategy in progress.  When I get emails from former Chinese students about their first jobs, I know the welter of hopes and anxieties that go with entry-level jobs.  Increasingly I know the slow melting of ache one feels when one stands up after sitting in one position too long.  And, as I observe my mother, I know that I will feel those minor aches and pains grow longer and deeper in duration.  It happens to most people as another part of the average life progress.

Still in a way I am leaving small chips along my path in time.  I post these blog entries.  I wonder if in fifty or hundred years time, some electronic harvester will find a way to plow through all the different blog assemblages and toss them into the electronic version of a toolbox.  I wonder if some small child or AI will come along and read through them and will in turn wonder about the people who left all those shards littering the electronic past.  Probably.